Bella Mater
by RemovingMarble
Summary: An alternate universe story in which Bellatrix LeStrange finds that she has only one way to get out of Azkaban: to adopt an eleven-year-old witch named Hermione Granger as the new heir to the LeStrange family name.
1. Chapter 1

_I've completed this story up through the first year at Hogwarts, though it takes the form more of a series of vignettes rather than a full narrative of the school year. I have outlines for the other six years of Hogwarts and might extend the story if readers are interested. Updates will hopefully be weekly, if work, other work, and further additional work allow me enough time to get everything edited and posted on schedule._

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 _ **Disclaimer:**_ _The Harry Potter books and all of their characters belong to JK Rowling and the various companies to which they have been licensed. The author of this fiction derives no profit from their use._

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When Hermione Granger received a letter from the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, she had-mistakenly- thought that it would be the best day of her life. Since she started school she had always felt different from her classmates- she had struggled to make friends, cut off from them by the fact that she had different interests. The fact that she was smarter. The fact that she didn't, quite, fit in. But now she knew that there was another world out there, a world for people like her, a world where she would _belong_. A place where she could excel. She had been thrilled to show her parents the letter.

Of course, at first Dan and Emma Granger had assumed that the letter was a joke. It was only when a stern Scottish lady who introduced herself as Professor Minerva McGonagall appeared on their doorstep that afternoon and promptly turned into a cat that the Grangers really took the letter seriously. And that was when the troubles began.

It had started with the sidelong glances, then a whispered conference between her parents in the kitchen. Hermione had not paid this a great deal of attention, as she was busy immersing herself in a fascinating new book- _Hogwarts, a History_ \- that Professor McGonagall had given her as an introduction to the world of magic. But even the thrill of the new book was not enough to distract her when her mother approached her with a very strained smile on her face.

"Hermione? I need you to run upstairs and pack your overnight bag. You can put, well, anything in it that you want to keep." Hermione stared at her mother for a second.

"My overnight bag? But why? Term doesn't start until September..." Her mother, she realized with a sinking feeling, was not quite looking at her, but rather looking fixedly at a spot over Hermione's shoulder.

"Do you remember Mother Tilda's sermon last week, Hermione?" Hermione blanched. Mother Tilda was a... well, Hermione didn't really have a good word to describe the strange old woman, but she ran a sort of church near their home that their neighbors had invited them to attend about a year before. Hermione had always felt uneasy in the services and missed the comfort and familiar ceremony of the church that they had attended when she was younger, but the adult Grangers had become quite enamored of the odd Mother Tilda. Enamored, in fact, to the point of donating a significant portion of their monthly paychecks to the strange woman, and adopting some of her more bizarre dietary rules (Hermione had searched three different translations of the Bible and even taken a look through a copy of the New Testament in the original Greek without finding any support for Mother Tilda's assertion that beans had been designed by Satan, or that eating pureed brown rice topped with ginger twice a day assured a quadruple-blessing of the Holy Spirit).

"I- perhaps you could remind me?" the girl stuttered. Her mother shook her head; it was a great disappointment to her that her bright daughter had paid so little attention to the sermons that they attended on a thrice-weekly basis.

"'Thou shalt not suffer the witch to live,'" her mother replied firmly, and Hermione's eyes widened in panic. "Oh, don't be so dramatic, dear. Mother Tilda doesn't think we should actually be killing witches. But anyone who practices things with crystals or spells or any of that- well, they have to be cut off from the faithful. I'm sorry, dear."

And just like that, Hermione's world shattered.

Bellatrix LeStrange entered the lobby of Gringotts trailed by an auror and three hit-wizards, all with their wands pointed directly at her back. A part of her felt somewhat insulted by the small size of the guard; in her prime- that is, before almost a decade in Azkaban had taken a bit of the edge off of her skill- taking down the four guards would have been child's play even without a wand. More of her mind, however, was focused on the incredible feeling of a being away from Azkaban, being away from the horrible, drafty, cramped cell and the soul-killing touch of the dementors. And even more of her mind was focusing on how she could extend that vacation by any means necessary. As proud as she was to have suffered prison on the Dark Lord's behalf, Bellatrix was no fool- freedom would offer her far better avenues for demonstrating her loyalty to her master than she could find sealed away in that wretched cell. Escape would be tricky- she had no wand, of course- but she had managed more than less in her days of service to the Dark Lord, and she was confident in her ability to improvise.

After a brief chat with a clerk Bellatrix found herself in the office of the LeStrange account manager, her guards reluctantly relegated to waiting outside. She took a seat across a large desk from a particularly old and battle-scarred goblin. Over his head hung a battleaxe that appeared to have seen a great deal of use in its time.

"Ms. LeStrange," he said after a brief pause. "My condolences."

"Congratulations would be more appropriate," she replied, leaning back in her seat. "The world will hardly miss my husband or my brother-in-law, and I can't say that I feel any differently on the issue." The goblin gave her a sharp look and then shrugged.

"There's a rumor that you might have caused their deaths..."

"Absolute nonsense," Bellatrix lied. The goblin stared at her again and then nodded.

"Just as well. That would... complicate the inheritance. Which, of course, is what you've been released for the day to straighten out." Bellatrix smirked. When her husband and brother-in-law had attacked her in her cell- she would never know if the two fools had simply been driven completely mad by the dementors or if there had been some motive to their actions- she had no idea that her self-defense slaying of the two brothers would result in her being released from Azkaban for a day in order to put the LeStrange affairs in order. _If someone had told me about that particular law, I'd have been tempted to deal with those two years ago,_ she thought with dark amusement.

Just one day- just long enough to visit Gringotts, speak to a solicitor about various accounts, and appoint new trustees over the pureblood estate- but for Bellatrix, one day away from the dementors was paradise. Now she just needed to find out how to make it last.

The goblin passed her a thick stack of papers.

"These are the basic account summaries, Ms. LeStrange. The main issue that we'll have today will be designating a heir for the LeStrange name and properties. Unless I am gravely mistaken, there are no direct descendants?" Bellatrix managed to suppress a snort.

"My husband and I had no children," she responded succinctly. While Rodolphus had had his uses, he had not, in Bellatrix's opinion, been the type of person that you would want to have children with. He might have been a pureblood, but he was also a pure idiot, and Bellatrix had no interest in seeing that level of stupidity passed on to the next generation.

"And his brother..." Bellatrix shook her head.

"Hmm," the goblin grunted, glancing through a file. "A handful of relatives, all distantly related- Lucius Malfoy has already filed a claim for all the LeStrange money, though his connection is far too tenuous to be a legitimate claimant..." the goblin trailed off, shuffling papers for a moment. "Well, this is awkward. Six or seven claimants, none of them particularly close relatives- I imagine that the ICW's Standing Committee on Inheritance will have to sort things out." Bellatrix frowned.

"Can't I adopt a candidate?"

"Hmm. Ministry won't stand for it," the goblin replied thoughtfully. "Can't adopt someone while you're in Azkaban, you know."

"I'm not in Azkaban today," she replied. "If I filled out the paperwork, could I complete a formal adoption before I go back? That would give me a chance to chose one of the claimants as an heir. Probably save your office a lot of paperwork." The goblin chewed his lip for a moment.

"Did you have one in mind?"

"My nephew Draco," she said. "He's a distant cousin of the LeStranges and one of my closest blood relatives. I could adopt him and-"

"Absolutely not! Even if the law would allow you to adopt the Malfoy family heir- which it won't, by the way- the Ministry would never approve you adopting anyone younger than the age of seventeen."

"And why not?" she asked, arching an eyebrow.

"Old loophole in the law. It was designed for the benefit of pureblood families, to make sure that their customs and such could be passed on properly," the goblin explained. "If a prisoner who represents the last line of a pureblood family, while on parole, is allowed to adopt a child to serve as that family's heir, then that prisoner must remain free to raise the child and train them in their responsibilities until the child is of age. The Ministry would never agree to letting you adopt a child because doing so would give you a free ticket out of Azkaban." The goblin turned in his desk to pull out another folder. "Now, I had some questions about a few of the investments the LeStrange family is holding-"

"Just a moment," Bellatrix interrupted smoothly. "Just for my own edification, am I to understand that if I were to go out now and adopt an infant, I would have until that child reached majority- seventeen years- free from Azkaban?"

"Oh, no," the goblin replied, searching through his file. "You can't adopt a child as heir to a noble family until they are at least eleven years of age- old enough to attend Hogwarts. Old law. Getting the Hogwarts letter proves that they aren't a squib, you see- enough magic to count as an heir in the eyes of the law. You could adopt an eleven-year-old and that would give you six years free of Azkaban. Well, unless you committed murder or used an Unforgiveable, in which case they'd probably throw you back regardless." Bellatrix nodded slowly, a grim smile forming on her face. Six years wasn't much compared to the seven consecutive life sentences she was currently serving, but she was confident that six years was more than enough time to find her master and restore him to power, which would render her sentence in Azkaban for serving him rather moot.

"Just one last question, I promise," she said brightly. "Goblins are magical creatures, right?" The goblin looked up for a moment, and gave a hesitant nod. "Good. I'm going to need one of your hairs."

The security detail assigned to Bellatrix was fairly good, but they had been completely unprepared when she had come out of the goblin's office with a wand. Well, wand might be a generous overstatement- the object in question was a chair leg, split in half and the two halves used to sandwich a core of goblin hair, the whole thing held together by some spellotape that Bellatrix had found in the goblin's desk. It was a miracle of the highest order that the thing worked at all, and it shattered completely the first time that Bella used it for a spell. But the spell that she used it for was "stupefy," which took out the auror and got her a real wand all in the same move. After that it only took a few seconds to dispatch the shocked hit wizards.

And then Bellatrix LeStrange was free.

Well, mostly free. She had to slip out of Gringotts itself, but that wasn't a problem- the goblins really didn't give a damn either way- and she knew that it would be a matter of minutes before teams of hit wizards led by the best aurors in the department would be breathing down her neck. Which meant that Bellatrix needed to find a magical orphanage, and she needed to find it fast. Fortunately for her, the Death Eaters had kept notes on such things- orphanages were great recruiting grounds for bitter half-bloods and pure-bloods whose families had fallen on hard times, and if one was lucky one might find some wretched blood traitor or mudblood spawn to terrorize.

It took her a few tries, but she was finally able to locate St. Clotilde's, a grim and run-down tenement house on the edge of Knockturn Alley. She swept through the doorway, "borrowed" wand in hand, and went straight to the administrator's office. A witch sitting in an outer office jumped up as Bellatrix approached and moved to stand in front of her.

"Miss, this is the Department of Magical Social Services! You can't just- _squawk! squawk!_ "

Bellatrix left the surprised chicken clucking at its desk and entered the office marked with the word "Director." Inside a heavyset man with graying hair and grizzled muttonchops sat behind a rickety desk. He looked up, surprised.

"I'm sorry," he said. "Doris didn't say that anyone was coming in, Miss-?"

"LeStrange," she said. "And Dorris isn't quite herself." Bellatrix giggled at her own joke as she appropriated the best of the two rather questionable chairs that sat facing the director's desk. "Now, let's get directly to business, Mr. Director. I need an orphan, and I need it fast."

"I... I beg your pardon?"

"You have it. Just get me that orphan." The man gave Bellatrix a very baffled look.

"Ms. LeStrange, ah, we generally don't just hand orphans out, you know. We have an application and vetting process-"

"Does it take long?"

"Usually a few weeks," the director explained with a shrug of his shoulders.

"Well, we've got about half an hour before the aurors get here, so I'll need you to expedite the process."

"A- _aurors?!_ Ms. LeStrange, I demand to know what is going on!" Bellatrix sighed, ran her fingers through her tangled hair and leveled her wand in the man's face.

"Short version: I am a Death Eater sentenced to serve many life sentences in Azkaban, currently on the run, and in need of an orphan. Right. Now." A crackle of purplish sparks sizzled at the tip of her wand.

"I can't just give a child to an escaped prisoner-"

"And I can't really get in any more trouble than I'm already in if I kill you," Bellatrix responded with a smile. The man gulped nervously. "Now, time is wasting, so why don't you tell me what you have in stock?"

It turned out that what he had in stock was rather pitiful. Most of the children present were too old for her purposes- close to reaching seventeen, which wouldn't help her much. And the ones still here at that age were generally next best thing to squibs anyway. Others were too young- she had to find one that was at least eleven. Time was growing short when the director finally grabbed a file that was sitting on the edge of his desk.

"Wait, wait!" he said, eyeing Bellatrix's glowing wand nervously- she _might_ have given him a mild hex or two to get him motivated. "Look, this one just came in! Just turned eleven this year, just got her Hogwarts letter today!" Bellatrix grabbed the file and opened it, glancing at a full-page picture of a small girl with bushy brown hair.

"Huh. Not very exciting," she muttered. "You seem enthusiastic about unloading this one compared to the last three we looked at. What's wrong with her? Kill her parents or something?"

"No, no! Nothing like that! We just got her, so no one's really attached. Don't know a thing about her, really." Bellatrix sighed. The girl didn't look like anything special, but if she had gotten her Hogwarts letter than at least she was a proper witch.

"All right," she said. "Show me this Hermione Granger."

Hermione felt an unpleasant sensation as if she were being squeezed through a very tight tube, and a second later she found herself somewhere very different than the orphanage office where she had been a moment before. She was on a narrow, tree-lined street, staring at a large Tudor-style house set far back from the road behind a high wrought-iron fence.

"Well, that's home. Come along," the woman beside her said crisply, tapping the gate impatiently with her wand and waiting for the house to admit her. Hermione stole a glance at the strange woman who had appeared out of nowhere to adopt her just minutes before. Wild, unkempt dark hair fell in long tangles down her back. The hair's uncared-for appearance was at sharp odds with woman's aristocratically beautiful face and proud, upright posture, but somehow perfectly matched the gleam of madness in the woman's eyes.

 _Bellatrix LeStrange_. The name-and its owner- made Hermione shudder slightly, and it took her a moment to realize that the woman- her adopted mother- had entered the gate and was striding rapidly towards the main house. Hermione scurried forward to keep up. Soon Hermione found herself in a dark, gloomy hallway just inside the main door.

"Tipsy! Tipsy, where the devil are you?" LeStrange shouted into the empty house. A second later there was a popping sound and Hermione gasped as an odd creature appeared right in front of her. The creature, which seemed to mainly consist of comically-large eyes and floppy ears, bowed low.

"Missus is calling for Tipsy?"

"I have returned from my... confinement... and have brought this girl," Bellatrix said, gesturing at Hermione. "This is Hermione LeStrange, the new heir of the LeStrange family." The creature's eyes widened and it bowed once more, this time in Hermione's direction.

"Tipsy is being honored to serve a new generation of the LeStrange family, Missy Herm- Hermonany- Hermi... Missy Hermy." Bellatrix waved a hand dismissively.

"Yes, yes, a great honor. Now get my room cleaned, and prepare a room for Hermione. But before that, dinner." The creature bowed one more time and then disappeared with another loud pop. Hermione stared, blinking, at the place it had been.

"Wh- what on earth was that?" she finally managed. Bellatrix turned and gave Hermione an odd look.

"A house elf, of course. You've never seen one, then? Your family didn't have elves?" Hermione shook her head.

"I'm the first witch from my family," she explained. "I didn't even know that there was magic until I got my Hogwarts letter this morning-" Hermione shut her mouth with an audible snap at the look on Bellatrix's face, which started as shock before evolving first to disgust and then to an expression of absolute rage.

"You- you're a _mudblood_?" the woman shrieked.


	2. Chapter 2

Disclaimer: Harry Potter and all associated characters belong to J.K. Rowling and the various entities to which she has licensed them. The author of this fanfiction derives no profit from their use.

* * *

Several hours later, Bellatrix sat on a low couch in the living room, taking slow, calming breaths. The couch was the last piece of intact furniture in the room, as much of it had been destroyed in one of Bellatrix's earlier tantrums.

 _Calm. Focus. I need the mudblood in order to stay out of prison. I can't serve the Dark Lord from inside of a prison. Calm. Focus. I need the mudblood in order to stay out of prison._ She repeated the words over and over in her head like a mantra, trying to use them to order the dislocated world around her. _Maybe if I just kill her a little bit, the Ministry won't even... no. Calm. Focus. I need the mudblood..._

Raking a hand through her tangle of curls, Bellatrix sighed and stood up. _Might as well get this over with,_ she thought as she pulled out her wand.

"Point me: wretched mudblood," she muttered, and the wand of walnut and dragon heartstring dutifully swung in the direction of the stairs. The wand eventually led her to the door of an upstairs bedroom. She tried the handle, which was locked. A quick spell and the lock snapped open, but to Bellatrix's surprise the door still wouldn't move. As she pressed against it she could hear furniture rattling; the little wretch must have piled everything in the room up against the door. _Not as dumb as she looks_ , Bellatrix admitted grudgingly.

"Little mudblood," she said in a singsong voice, "open up, open up, and let me in." There was a long pause.

"That seems like a monumentally bad idea," the child's voice said from the other side of the door. Bellatrix's lip quirked; though the child's voice was shaking with fear, her words carried an almost adorable bravado. This promised to be fun.

"Does making me blast the door down sound like a better idea?" There was a long pause, and then, instead of a reply, Bellatrix heard what sounded suspiciously like a window being opened. "Hermione, child, think carefully: do you really want me to have to chase you across the estate in the dark? It will _not_ do anything to improve my mood." There was another long pause, and then the girl spoke again.

"I can't seem to see a good option from where I'm standing," Hermione admitted. Only someone like Bellatrix, who knew the emotion so intimately, would have been able to detect the edge of panic to the girl's collected words.

"Hmm. I can see where it might be difficult for you right now," Bellatrix said, her voice taunting, "but your difficulties will increase _exponentially_ if you do not OPEN THIS DOOR RIGHT NOW." Once again there was silence, and then, just as she preparing a good, strong blasting hex, Bellatrix heard the sound of more furniture being moved. Finally the door cracked open.

"That, child, was a wise decision," Bellatrix said as she entered the small bedroom where Hermione had tried to hide. The girl flinched as Bellatrix swept past, but otherwise held her ground. Seating herself on the narrow bed, Bellatrix looked over the very troublesome little brat that was her sole ticket out of Azkaban. "Now, what are we to do with you, hmm?"

"I- maybe we could see if the orphanage has a return policy?" the girl suggested hopefully. Bellatrix snorted.

"Unlikely. And not especially helpful to me. You see, child, I need you."

"For target practice?" the girl asked skeptically, and Bellatrix rolled her eyes.

"I assure you, brat, that if I'd actually wanted any of those curses to hit you, they would have. No, I need you, alive and intact, because as long as I'm raising a child, I stay out of prison." Hermione's eyes widened. "Yes, child, you are my parole condition, so to speak. Your parents clearly didn't need you, the orphanage didn't need you, but while I might not like you, I DO need you, and I plan to keep you. What condition I keep you in, though, depends on you."

"If I'm your parole condition, wouldn't blasting me apart get you in trouble?" The girl's voice had a note of defiance that impressed Bellatrix in spite of herself.

"Oh, I can think of quite a few other little charms and spells that could make your life rather unpleasant without resorting to a blasting curse, dear child," she said with a predatory grin. The mudblood gulped nervously. "On the other hand, even the Ministry of Magic isn't always incompetent- if I'm not careful, someone could ask all kinds of awkward questions about why you're only six inches tall, for example, and they're bound to start checking up on me sooner or later. Fortunately, a simple solution presents itself." Bellatrix sighed; she didn't like this plan, but it really was the simplest course of action, and would give her the best chance of keeping the Ministry out of her life.

"You've already received a Hogwarts letter," she said. The girl nodded cautiously, thinking of all the trouble that the Hogwarts letter had already caused in her life. "Hogwarts is a boarding school in northern Scotland. As a student, you would stay there for nine months of the year- we would only have to deal with each other over the summers. We wouldn't even have to see much of each other over the summers if you have any little friends that might want you to visit." The girl nodded slowly, a bit of hope in her eyes. "So, stay out of my way, follow my rules, keep up appearances when the Ministry drops by, and don't embarrass me too much at Hogwarts, and you can look forward to salutary neglect. On the other hand, if you decide to make a nuisance of yourself, I can put a petrification charm on you, stick you in a closet, and forget about you until you're seventeen." She pinned the mudblood with a cold glare.

"So, child? Do we have a deal?"

* * *

It was a testimony to Ministry incompetence- if any such testimony were needed- that it was not until the next afternoon that a team of hitwizards lead by three aurors arrived at the gate to the LeStrange estate and began the futile task of trying to crack the wards. _Twenty-four solid hours between the time that I escaped and the time that they bothered to check my house,_ Bellatrix mused. _Perhaps I really_ did _underestimate them_. She idly wondered whether it would be more entertaining to wait until they cracked the wards or to walk down to the gates and greet them immediately. Weighing her options, she decided to first look for the child.

The girl was not in the small bedroom where she had spent the night, nor was she in the kitchen trying to steal food (Bellatrix's first guess as to where a mudblood would go when unsupervised). In fact, Bellatrix probably wouldn't have found the child's hiding place at all if she hadn't happened to pass through the family library on her way through the house; the bushy-haired little girl was seated at a desk that was positively buried under books, reading and making notes on a sheet of parchment.

Bellatrix slid in quietly and read over the girl's shoulder, her eyes widening a bit in surprise. A studious mudblood? A clever mudblood? _Well, I suppose that Lily Evans girl always was bright,_ she mused. And if the girl loved books it would give her an easy way of controlling the child- threaten to take them away. It might be just as effective in keeping her in line as stinging hexes, and would leave far less evidence for the Ministry. Leaning forward, she tapped a spot on the girl's parchment with her wand.

"It's levi-OH-sah, not levi-oh-SAH," she corrected. "Common first-year mistake. Mudblood or not, no one in my house will make common mistakes." The girl jumped in surprise and let out a little squeak of surprise, bringing a predatory grin to Bellatrix's face.

"Th-thank you," Hermione mumbled, scratching out and correcting what she had written.

"Don't mumble, child. And don't slouch," Bellatrix said sharply. "You'll already embarrass me enough at Hogwarts without adding poor posture and abysmal public speaking skills to the equation." The girl scowled but prudently kept her mouth closed and straightened in her seat. "Now, we have some guests coming- nasty people from the Ministry coming to arrest your dear mummy." Her voice dripped with false sugar. "And I'm sure you wouldn't want that to happen, would you? They'll probably be another four hours cracking through enough of the wards to make it to the front door, so-" the sound of the doorbell cut through her words- "or they'll be here right now. Curses."

Bellatrix crossed the room to the mirror that hung on one wall of the library and tapped it with her wand. A moment later the mirror revealed a view of the LeStrange front door, where a wizard with a flowing white beard, sparkling blue eyes, and absolutely no sense of fashion stood with drawn wand.

"And double curses," Bellatrix hissed. Dumbledore come to fetch her? That was the worst possible scenario. What's more, she had counted on the wards stalling her guests a bit longer- the ink on the adoption papers still wasn't dry, and while her generous use of stinging hexes had spurred the process along, it was entirely possible that an "i" or two hadn't been dotted, a "t" perhaps not quite crossed. Normal Ministry employees she could confuse or intimidate, but Dumbledore... "Dearheart, perhaps you'd better answer the door for your mother," Bellatrix said with a sigh.

Hermione hesitated only a moment before opening the door. The sight that greeted her was rather alarming: a tall man with a long white beard, a tall, purple wizard's hat, and sky-blue robes decorated with neon pink stars that moved in intricate patterns of their own accord.

"Can I help you?" she asked uncertainly. She felt that what the man probably needed the help with most was his wardrobe, but she suspected he would need a professional to work on that- perhaps a professional psychiatrist, in fact.

"Ah, Miss Granger," the man said with a twinkle in his eyes. "I am Albus Dumbledore, the headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. I am delighted to see you looking well."

"Thank you? It's, ah, I think it's 'Miss LeStrange' now, though, sir," she said uncertainly. The old man frowned for a moment.

"That is actually one of the issues that I would like to address with the lady of the house," he said after a brief pause. "Is she available?"

"This way, sir," Hermione said.

* * *

Hermione sat in hallway outside of the LeStrange family library. The hallway was absolutely quiet, with no noise leaking out from the room where Bellatrix and Professor Dumbledore were meeting. Hermione would have normally taken the silence as a good sign- at least the two weren't shouting- but when even placing her ear to the keyhole yielded no new information, she was forced to conclude that the two adults were using some type of silencing charm. This marked the third time in the past two days that adults had met for a hushed meeting that would determine Hermione's life, and she found that she liked the idea less and less each time it happened. The first meeting had been her parents decision to abandon her- a raw, terrible event that she still couldn't wrap her head around, that still made her wonder if all this talk of magic and house elves and a deranged murderous adoptive mother wasn't all part of some wild dream and she would wake up back in her own bed in her own home with loving parents...

Loving parents who had dumped her off at an orphanage to appease the strange old lady who ran their...church. Hermione sighed. She knew that this wasn't a nightmare. She was a logical girl; her nightmares made a lot more sense than this. It was, at least, some small comfort to tell herself that if her parents were crazy enough to abandon her, she was probably better off without them. That really didn't make her feel much better, but she had a vague hope that if she repeated it often enough it might.

She was still uncertain of what she wanted; last night, when Bellatrix LeStrange first discovered that Hermione was a "wretched, filthy mudblood," she had wanted nothing more than to flee the LeStrange house, and hoped for any form of rescue. But a rescue that took her back to the rather seedy orphanage- the place that had willingly surrendered her to an escaped criminal- didn't seem a huge improvement from living with said escaped criminal. After all, what if she went back and they adopted her to another escaped criminal? What if the new escaped criminal was _worse_?

Whatever crimes Bellatrix had committed, her house had a library, after all. A _large_ library that smelled of old paper and leather. That probably put her leaps and bounds ahead of the next convict who needed a child in a hurry.

The door behind her opened, and a white beard and twinkling blue eyes protruded into the hallway.

"Miss... well, we'll get to that in a moment; perhaps you could join us?" Hermione stood, straightening her back- the words, " _don't slouch, child! You're enough of an embarrassment already!"_ had been ingrained in her mind already- and stepped through the doorway. Inside her new mother- the violent, bigoted, and unpredicted escaped criminal with whom she shared a home- was standing, leaning against a bookshelf, rolling her wand between her fingers. Had Hermione known Bellatrix better, she might have recognized the signs of nervousness, even fear, as the witch glanced at the elderly headmaster. As it was, Hermione only saw the escaped criminal that had adopted her, as compared to Dumbledore, a man representing the government that had allowed her to be adopted by an escaped criminal: a near choice of two evils.

Dumbledore gestured for Hermione to take a seat, and she did so. A glance from Bellatrix reminded her to sit up straight.

"So, as the first order of business, I believe that I shall address you as 'Miss Granger'- it appears that there were a few... irregularities... in your adoption," the headmaster said, his blue eyes twinkling. "As such, it has not yet been ratified-"

"Does that mean that I have to go back to the orphanage?" Hermione asked, her voice uncertain. The orphanage was admittedly free of psychotic escaped criminals, but it had also lacked anything in the way of a library- in fact, the staff had looked at her as if she were crazy when she made inquiries about it- and given the speed with which they had surrendered her to Bellatrix, she didn't have much faith in their ability to provide her with a safe home environment.

"I have come, Miss Granger, to return you home," the headmaster said.

"Home? Did my parents-" hope made her words catch in her throat for a moment.

"I am sure that your parents are already beside themselves over their hasty decision. If we only take a little time talk to them-" Hermione shook her head.

"No."

"No? But Miss Granger-"

"I don't- I don't think that talking to them would make any difference, sir," she managed, ignoring the lump in her own throat. There were times that Hermione wondered if she would be happier if she weren't quite as smart; a somewhat-less-smart girl might be able to pretend that she would be able to go back home and find everything returned to normal. The eventual disappointment would be the same, but perhaps being able to fool herself for a few minutes would be pleasant.

"I see," the headmaster said thoughtfully. "Well, I was thinking of speaking to a good friend of mine, Molly Weasley-" Bellatrix snorted and rolled her eyes, but Dumbledore ignored her- "who has a son who would be in your class at Hogwarts and a daughter just a year younger-"

"Only the two?" Bellatrix interrupted in a mock-sweet voice. "Why, whatever happened to all the others? Did she manage to loose all of them?" Dumbledore's face tightened, and Hermione watched him struggle to keep his smile.

"Mrs. Weasley has several older children- quite a large, happy family-"

"I'd like to stay here, sir." Bellatrix's eyebrows shot into her hairline in surprise, and Hermione felt the same way- she had no idea that she would say the words until they were already out of her mouth. Refusing to return to her parents was one thing; staying away from the orphanage made sense, but why was she refusing to consider Professor Dumbledore's other options?

Had Hermione been a tad older and a good bit more objective, she might have noticed that Professor Dumbledore bore a slight resemblance- mostly in wardrobe, truth be told- to Mother Tilda, the religious...something... that her parents adored. And whom Hermione directly blamed for ruining her childhood. But all Hermione knew was that she felt an instinctive distrust for the brightly-robed wizard. Hermione would choose the devil she knew.

Professor Dumbledore's lips compressed into a frown once more.

"Miss Granger, I'm sure-"

"It's Miss LeStrange now, sir," she interrupted quietly. "Isn't it? I mean, we can fix the adoption, can't we?" The old man sighed.

"It would be possible to still formalize the adoption," he said, nodding slowly, looking at Hermione with troubled eyes. Behind him, Bellatrix was also watching Hermione- watching Hermione the way a person might watch a strange new insect that they had discovered, an insect that they were considering dissecting to figure out how it ticked. Hermione shuddered slightly, second- and third- and fourth-guessing her choice as the adults showed her back into the hallway so that Professor Dumbledore "could have a moment to chat with your... mother."


	3. Chapter 3

Disclaimer: Harry Potter and all associated characters belong to J.K. Rowling and the various entities to which she has licensed them. The author of this fanfiction derives no profit from their use. 

* * *

Hermione and her... mother... stood on Platform 9 3/4, staring at bright red of the Hogwarts Express and studiously ignoring the seven aurors who stood around them, wands drawn, waiting for Bellatrix to make a hostile move.

"Do you remember your instructions for the year?" Bellatrix said in a clipped voice, clearly wishing she was somewhere else.

"Yes, mother," Hermione replied.

"We'll review them anyway. You are not to die. You are not to get expelled, because then you would be sent back home to me, and neither one of us wants _that_. You are not to harass your betters- which, in your case, would be anyone not named Hermione LeStrange. You are not to be an annoying swot- though I'll cut you some slack on that one, as it is probably too much to ask of you. You are not to embarrass the name of LeStrange any more than is absolutely unavoidable. If you manage these things, you will get...?"

"Books and being left alone over the summer," Hermione answered.

"Correct. And if you fail, the consequence will be...?"

"Locked in a broom closet all summer with only the Black family's half-mad house elf Kreacher to keep me company," she said. Bellatrix nodded.

"Excellent. Now, the LeStrange name will likely open some doors for you socially, but I imagine word is already out amongst the gossips that you're a filthy mudblood who tricked her way into the family, so the better sort will probably refuse to associate with you," Bellatrix said. Hermione scowled; she had absolutely no interest in the people that Bellatrix thought of as the "better sort." Meeting her new "Cousin Draco" in Diagon Alley while shopping for school supplies had taught her that. "The muggle-lovers who might normally be willing to make friends with such filth might be a little put off by the fact that I tortured and killed many of their parents, so I'd say your chances of making friends there are slim as well."

Hermione nodded glumly; she had come to the same conclusion herself. She was grateful that Bellatrix was at least pitching her voice low enough that no one standing nearby seemed to have noticed the rather horrific mother-daughter conversation.

"So, your best chances of making friends are with other mudbloods, if there are any this year- though the fact that you are an annoying swot will count against you there as well. Probably a lost cause, honestly, though if you do manage to make a friend you are more than welcome to stay with them for the summer. The next several summers, actually."

"Yes, mother."

Bellatrix gave Hermione a long, measuring look, then shook her head. She passed Hermione a heavy bag that turned out to be brimming with galleons- "a little spending money, so that damned interfering Headmaster can't claim that I'm neglecting you-" and pushed Hermione in the direction of the train.

* * *

Hermione felt lost as she made her way through the corridor of the Hogwarts Express. There were so many people, older students talking and laughing, first-years like herself making their first friends- she had never known where to begin with that sort of thing, and the looming spectre of Bellatrix made her social anxiety even stronger than usual. And so it was a huge relief when Hermione spotted a first-year boy who looked every bit as lost as Hermione felt.

Hermione fixed a helpful smile on her face and approached the boy, who looked on the verge of tears.

"Is something wrong?" she asked. He looked up, surprise and hope flickering across his face.

"I'm looking for my toad, Trevor," he explained. "He's gotten lost again and I can't find him anywhere!"

"I'll help you look," Hermione offered, and a true smile flashed across the boy's face. The tension Hermione had been carrying all day loosened slightly. She could do this! She could make friends at Hogwarts!

"I'm Neville," the boy said, his voice hesitant as he extended his hand. "Neville Longbottom." Hermione reached out to shake his hand.

"Hermione LeStrange," she said, only to see Neville's eyes widen.

Then the screaming began.

Hermione had a sinking feeling that this would be a fairly typical response from the people she would be meeting for the rest of the day, so she spent the rest of the rest of the train ride in a compartment alone, crying her eyes out. 

* * *

Professor McGonagall stared down the length of the Great Hall, weighing the cluster of first-years who stood at the far end. After decades spent in the Deputy Headmistress's position, she fancied that she knew the sorting almost as well as the Hat did; already she could pick out the faces of likely young lions in the small crowd.

As she began calling out the students' names, there were two in particular that she watched for: Harry Potter, of course; not just the Boy-Who-Lived but the child of two of her favorite students, left on a muggle doorstep a decade before over McGonagall's own strong objections. She had often wondered how the boy had turned out and had high hopes that she would have a chance to mentor him as a member of her house.

The second student who had already caught her interest was an especially bright muggle-born witch that McGonagall had met over the summer; a young girl whose eyes had danced with excitement when she learned that magic was real and that she would have a chance to study it. Hermione Granger had been everything that McGonagall dreamed of finding in her students: quick-witted, studious, obviously loyal to her family and brave- brave enough to plunge into a radically new world without a second thought. McGonagall had been coveting the girl since she met her, and dreaded loosing her to Flitwick's house instead. And so it was that her heart skipped a beat when she realized that she was well past the G's in the alphabet and there was no "Granger, Hermione" on the list.

 _Could she have changed her mind? Could her parents have..._ suddenly McGonagall remembered the nervous looks on the faces of the adult Grangers when they learned that magic was real. _They must have panicked and withdrawn her!_ For the first time in her tenure as Deputy Headmistress, McGonagall wondered if showing up on a muggle doorstep, transforming into a cat, and handing over a shopping list for the new school year was really the best approach to easing muggle families into the world of magic.

So focused was she on her new problem that she was only half paying attention to the names that she called. One name, however, pulled her firmly back into the present.

"Le- LeStrange, Hermione?" she said, her voice twisted in shock. And the girl that McGonagall had met as Hermione Granger approached the school, wearing a look of determination on her face.

Hermione took her seat and felt the hat slide down on her head, trying not to think of all the other heads it had been on through its history.

 _"_ _No worries, my girl,_ " a pleasant voice said in her head. _"I'm charmed to prevent the spread of head lice. Good thing, too; Goyle, Vincent could use some lessons in personal hygiene, though that's just between you and me. Now, let's take a look inside that head of yours. Quite a nice brain you've got in there; you'd do very well in Ravenclaw..."_

 _Excuse me? Sir?_ Hermione thought. _Mr. Hat? Can you hear me?_

 _"_ _Of course I can, child. I'm in your head."_

 _Then, please, is there any way you could sort me into Slytherin?_ There was a long pause.

 _"_ _Slytherin? Hmm. Well, you certainly have a strong drive to prove yourself... still, not a good fit. You're a bit too much of a rule-follower still, despite your recent loss of faith in authority. Besides, you'd be eaten alive in the snake pit, my dear; it's mostly purebloods these days, and many would object rather cruelly to your origins."_

 _I don't care,_ Hermione thought desperately. _I have to prove to Bellatrix that I'm as good a witch as any of them. The only way that I can do that is to be in her old house- to show I can get sorted Slytherin just like all of her family._

" _Hmm. So, to be clear, you're saying that you'd be willing to endure all of the taunting, the pranks, the pariah status, and the general misery of being in Slytherin just for a chance to prove your worth?"_

Hermione barely hesitated. _Yes,_ she thought. _I'll do whatever it takes._

" _Right, that makes this easy,_ " the Hat chuckled. _"With courage like that..._ GRYFFINDOR!"

McGonagall breathed a sigh of relief as she heard the Hat's announcement; whatever had gone wrong with Miss Granger- now Miss LeStrange- McGonagall would at least have some opportunity to help her. Though based on the rather dirty look that Miss LeStrange was giving the Hat, the choice had not been what she was hoping for.

The house of the Lions also looked rather uncertain about the new member in their midst; some students clapped politely, but many others shot suspicious stares at the girl with the infamous name. When she took her seat, a space opened up around her, students shrinking away as if a particularly dangerous snake had taken a place at the table. Hermione ignored them, staring straight ahead until the food appeared, carefully keeping her tears in check. 

* * *

"I appreciate you coming on such short notice, Ms. LeStrange," Professor McGonagall said, her clipped Highland accent sounding even more stern than usual. "Normally we do not bother involving parents in every disciplinary action, but given the circumstances of your recent adoption..."

"I quite appreciate you contacting me, Professor," Bellatrix said in a cold voice. Her eyes were still fixed on Hermione, who had slumped down as far as possible in her seat and was studying the ground in front of her. "Now, perhaps you could explain what my daughter has done to merit my trip here?"

"I'll leave that to young Ms. LeStrange," the Deputy Headmistress said, fixing Hermione with a stern glare.

"I- I got into a fight with Malfoy," Hermione mumbled, sounding on the verge of tears.

"Speak up," Bellatrix snapped. "And sit up straight. Now, what happened?"

"He said-" Hermione straightened in her seat and her voice grew slightly stronger, though her eyes remained fixed on the ground. "He said that I wasn't a real witch at all, just a worthless mudblood. He said that I was a taint to the LeStrange name and that you were a blood traitor and a muggle-lover for adopting me and that one day we'd both get ours, and- and then I hit him."

"Hit him?" Bellatrix's voice rose to a screech. Hermione winced and slumped in her seat again.

"Hit him and broke his nose," McGonagall added. "Though given the-"

"Hermione LeStrange! You should know better than that! Embarrassment to the LeStrange name indeed," Bellatrix scolded, standing up from her chair to glare down at the girl. "Punching like a common muggle? What do you think I send you to a magic school for? What do you think that you have a wand for? You don't _punch_ people! You _curse_ them!" McGonagall gasped.

"Ms. LeStrange! That's not quite the point here-" McGonagall said, scandalized, but Bellatrix ignored her.

"I am quite disappointed in you, Hermione. How you expected to be treated like a witch when you won't act like one is beyond me."

"I'm sorry," the girl whispered, her voice miserable.

"Why, even a first-year student should be able to manage a good bone-breaking curse," Bellatrix continued.

"Certainly not!" McGonagall almost leapt from her seat. "Why, we teach first years no such thing! That's dangerous dark magic!" Bellatrix stared at the Deputy Headmistress, her mouth open.

"Well!" she finally said. "I will _certainly_ be writing to the Board of Governors about that. Hogwarts has certainly dropped in standards since my day." She turned back towards her adoptive daughter. "Sit _up_ ," she snapped. "I shan't keep telling you." Hermione straightened up once more. "And look at me." Slowly, her daughter complied. Bellatrix noticed that the girl's eyes were bright with unshed tears. She sighed. "What happened is not entirely your fault." She shot a glance at McGonagall, who appeared to still be in shock from Bellatrix's reaction, and shook her head. "Clearly you are not receiving proper guidance in how to behave, and if Hogwarts cannot be trusted to do this, then I will make it my personal mission to educate you."

"Yes, ma'am."

McGonagall settled back into her seat with a slight thud. Bellatrix spared her a glance.

"If we're quite done here, I think I'll speak to my daughter alone," she said. McGonagall nodded dumbly, and Bellatrix gestured for Hermione to follow her as she left the office. As soon as she was outside, Bellatrix drew on her memories of the school to lead Hermione to an empty classroom. The girl stood uncertainly, shifting her weight from foot to foot, as Bellatrix looked down at her sternly.

"You are a pathetic, wretched mudblood, an interloper with no right to learn magic and no understanding of our society. The sooner you come to terms with that, the less trouble you will have and, more important, the less trouble _I_ will have."

"But I do better than them. Than all of them! I have the best grades in our class! And the person in second place isn't even close! If I have no right to learn magic, then why am I better at it than dear, precious little Draco?" Hermione's eyes blazed, and Bellatrix found herself torn between fury at the girl's defiance and amusement.

"That does nothing to change who you are. Make the best grades, please all the little mudblood-loving teachers here, and everyone will still know that you're a filthy little mudblood."

"Then I don't care what they think!" she shouted. "I don't care! I don't care about their stupid blood purity and their family trees! I'll just beat them! I'll beat them until they shut up!"

Bellatrix laughed, wild cackle that carried more than a touch of the Black family madness. Hermione backed away, her face nervous, as Bellatrix wiped a tear from her own eye, her anger dissolved in one mercurial moment.

"Oh, dear. Oh, you poor little thing. So full of hope, so unprepared for the cruel, cruel world. And therefor, so entertaining. I will take great pleasure in watching as you beat your head against the wall of reality. However," and Bellatrix's voice became stern once more, "I will not have you embarrassing my name while you learn how the world works. Take out your wand."

Hermione nervously complied.

"Duelist stance," Bellatrix ordered. The girl shifted her feet uncertainly. "I said duelist stance, child. You can't tell me that they haven't at least taught you that much."

"They haven't," Hermione said sullenly. Bellatrix felt her mouth drop open.

"I really will have to write that letter to the Board of Governors," she muttered. "All right, right foot forward, left back. Weight forward. Left hand down. Yes, there." She paused a moment to consider the girl's position, then reached a hand forward to adjust Hermione's posture slightly. "There. A duelist's stance. That's exactly how idiots stand when they fight. You'll see a lot of that in the hallways. If you want to actually survive a fight, keep your feet like this..."

* * *

 _Author's Note: Apologies for a long delay in posting this update. The final scene of this_ _chapter_ _was my original inspiration for writing this story; it popped into my head fully formed a few months ago and as soon as it did I desperately wanted to_ _know_ _what had happened before and what would happen after._


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